Game Management Has To Be A Lot Better

14 November 2017

David Artell is looking for better game management from his players after seeing Lincoln City fight back from a 1-0 deficit to win 4-1 at the Alexandra Stadium at the weekend. The Imps inflicted a third straight league defeat on the Alex and that has seen us fall to 20th place in the league table.

Artell is hoping that a second away win of the season at Forest Green Rovers could provide the springboard for a change in fortune but he says that his team have to handle situations in matches better.

The Crewe boss told us: “We still go through the games, win, lose or draw and we know the things we did well and the thing we could do better. We could have been out of sight on Saturday at half-time but we weren’t.

“We then needed to be smarter in the second half when they pressed us. We still tried to play and didn’t beat their press once. We needed to get into the half of the pitch and earn the right to play again. We didn’t do that and we didn’t manage the state of the game very well.

“It allowed them to build momentum and we played into their hands. So from being 1-0 up and in control, we are fairly quickly 3-1 down and chasing the game again.

“We needed to manage the situation better. We didn’t get the ball in behind them or retain possession well enough up the pitch.

“I would say that some of them hid away, they would say they possibly didn’t understand what had happened but either way, we didn’t get a grip of what they were doing and the game went away from us.”